o11c 4 days ago

Clippy really ... wasn't bad? It mostly stayed out of your way, occasionally showed a button to perform a useful task, and could interact with the help system without having to click through 3 menus.

It wasn't a panacea but it was at least positive-value, unlike most current AI.

  • parpfish 4 days ago

    the meme of "omg, clippy sucked and was sooo annoying" has overshadowed the actual level of annoyance from back in the day.

    nobody used clippy, but nobody expressed vitriol. you just easily dismissed it and went on with your business.

  • gitaarik 3 days ago

    I guess his appearance appeals to SOME people..

Tempest1981 4 days ago

I think we have our hacker/power-user blinders on. It was cool to hate Clippy.

But many non-tech-savvy users felt differently, and were accepting of the attempt to provide help.

  • parpfish 4 days ago

    what if clippy's true purpose was sales/marketing and not productivity?

    back in the day people needed to be convinced that they needed a computer and that they'd be able to figure it out.

    if you see clippy on a showroom floor or on your friends pc, you might think "oh yeah, i suppose I could use a computer to do that!".

rijoja 4 days ago

yes obviously it's clippy because everyone hated clippy that is the point

the idea is that when your CEO goes on slack or teams or whatever and see 100 clippies they'll be "oh wow, nobody likes how we earn our dollar."

or the very least people who are concerned about surveillance will know who is on their team!

so just do it

I'm serious

ashirviskas 4 days ago

Maybe it's the generation gap? As a kid, I loved that I could "play" on the PC with Clippy, which mostly consisted on trying it to appear and make it do something. I get that if you were trying to get some work done, it might have been annoying.